What’s Your Excuse? EP 076 Award-winning Vision Loss Coach, Crime Fiction Author, Disability Advocate, Law School Graduate, and Podcast Host

Hello again, I hope you and your family enjoyed the weekend together. And I hope that my latest What’s Your Excuse? with my new friend Donna Jodhan will educate, entertain, and motivate you to overcome your own excuses. Donna is an award-winning vision loss coach, crime fiction author, disability advocate, and host of two podcasts. In Ask Donna she uses her lived experience to answer people’s questions about life in general and about living with vision loss in particular. You can even send her your questions for future episodes. She also hosts dining With Donna a cooking show. She started cooking during the pandemic with virtual help from her mother, and loved it so much that she just had to share what she has learned with the world. Be sure to listen all the way to the end of her podcasts for the mental stretch during Ask Donna or the cooking problem solving hacks at on Dining with Donna. She is the only person I have ever talked with who has experienced living as a blind person, then living with sight, only to return back to life without sight. I am also fascinated by anyone who writes fiction, and I am especially amazed by those who can create whole worlds full of brand new people without the aid of vision. I love the part about how she can do things like write fiction because she focuses on the joy rather than on any potential financial success. Finally, a couple of subjects that came up often are learning to accept things as they are, stretching all five senses, and finding work arounds to deal with the world. I just know you are going to find something to love in our conversation. Disclaimers There are a couple things you need to know about the show. One, I don’t edit the recording unless a technical issue results in dead air. I think of my show as recorded live in the same style used by television in the early days. Two, I sing on the intro. I started doing it out of necessity many years ago, and people loved it. So, I keep doing it. The music I’m singing is my own original song titled what else What’s Your Excuse? Now On To The Show Support Our Sponsors Blubrry has been providing both financial and technical support for my show, for Shredding For Gold, and for the WYE Podcast Network. I couldn’t keep doing what I’m doing without them. And it would be impossible to help other disable people with their podcast without their support. Show Notes A few friends have told me that it might be helpful to you to share a run down of the topics covered and their approximate time on the recording. This is the first time I have ever done this, and I could really appreciate your feedback. She explained about having seen vision loss from both sides having lived with no vision, then having her sight restored, and finally losing her vision again. 04:40 She talks about the emotional readjustment to losing that regained sight as an adult 08:13 She shares about how her family reacted to her changing vision. Including their patience when she wanted to see everyone and everything. 09:49 We discuss whether or not Canadian parents of visually impaired or of disabled children are more accepting and trusting than those from other countries. 11:41 I asked her about her about the various states of her vision effected her education. 13:18 She talked about pursuing her degree in Law and how the lack of accessibility in online learning was a problem that continues to persist. 14:20 We discussed how the features in overly robust software applications get in the way of people using screen readers ability to use the critical part of software. 16:35 We explained some of the challenges that screen reader users face such as needing keyboard command options because we don’t have access to the mouse. We also talked about how often software & website updates break accessibility. And we talked about how much we love Zoom 17:53 She touches on the need to be a creative problem solver and find work arounds. A subject we will come back to often. 21:03 Plug for Less Annoying CRM, LACRM. They provide a simple, low-cost, highly accessible option for managing your work relationships They are not sponsors of the show, but they have made my work as a podcaster and creative entrepreneur so much easier; that I want to mention them. And if you use my affiliate link, you will receive an additional 30 days on your free trial. 23:16 I asked her to tell me when her passion for advocacy for the visually impaired began and to share some of her proudest accomplishments. 23:54 She shared what she learned about getting the laws changed, and what she learned about herself during the process. 28:28 I asked her to share advice to help us all as we continue to deal with the many struggles in our lives and in the world today. She touched on having patience and accepting those things you don’t control. 30:36 She talked about how to deal with troublesome challenging people She used a wonderful metaphor about people as waves. 32:40 She shared a bit about her vision loss coaching and the lived experiences that have made her the awesome coach she is today. 34:27 She transitioned into one of her favorite techniques which is the mental stretch. She advocates for making a special effort to use all your senses. 36:25 The MICC Principle which stands for clear your Mind and Imagination of Cobwebs and Clutter. 37:04 I asked her if there was a difference in coaching people through vision loss based on how old they were when they lost their vision. 38:49 We talked about her writing. It is impressive either way, but personally I am fascinated by fiction authors. I believe it is so much more difficult to create characters and locations instead of simply recounting experiences. 43:05 I loved how she decided to write her books because it gave her pleasure. And we talked about how too many creative people have to put so much pressure on themselves to be profitable. 46:34 We discussed how DOnna deals with the writing process including overcoming things like writer’s block. I did get a mention in there for my amazing author friend Adriana Gavazzoni. 49:42 I asked her to talk about her love for cooking and how she managed to end up doing a cooking podcast. 52:02 Final thoughts from Donna. She encourages you again, and she goes back to the topic of work arounds. 57:03 Wrapping up the show. Thinking about how cool it is to have someone on a show about overcoming excuses who is so invested in finding those work arounds. Happy to have a reason to remind y’all that as a rule the visually impaired and other disabled people have to be good problems solvers. And that this ability is an unrecognized asset by most employers. And I reminded people of the financial benefit of making their products more inclusive of the visually impaired. 58:51 Friends Of The Show These folks are not official sponsors of the show. But they provide products or services that I use. I believe their offerings could be something you could want or need. All these links are affiliate links. Dan-O’s Seasonings make no-salt, low-sodium, gluten free, seasonings for the table or when preparing food. I like them so much because they allowed me to return good tasting food to my brother who lives with arrhythmia. Crystal Creek Organics sell CBD oil in its various forms. Their product is grown organically. I have been living with knee pain for years. There were lots of days I wouldn’t have even been able to accomplish what I did get done. Sleep Phones are soft comfy cordless headphones designed by a sleep doctor to make it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep. I never leave the house without making sure mine are in my shoulder bag. Pod Match is a great website to help connect podcast hosts and guests. It uses artificial intelligence to cut down on the guess work. Even though I work as a podcast guest booker, I still want you to know about this site. Partly because I have an abundance mindset, and partly because I know that even on a great site like this you still have to reach out. And if you are a host, and if you book guests through Pod Match; You could get paid for interviewing people. I hope you will check out their websites. After all, anything you buy will result in support for my show and the What’s Your Excuse Network. About Donna Donna J. Jodhan is an award-winning vision-impaired advocate, author, blogger, law school graduate, and podcast commentator. She began her active advocacy in earnest in 2000 after having helped to kick start various advocacy initiatives at former employers. Before 2000, she received an innovational award from IBM Canada for her work on creating an accessible workstation and an accessibility award from the Royal Bank for her work in helping the training school at RBC to develop procedures to help employees with disabilities to be more functional in the workplace. Donna became an entrepreneur in 1998 and at around 2000 she realized that as an entrepreneur she would need to fight harder to convince potential clients and consumers that as a vision-impaired entrepreneur she could fulfill their requests and needs. Along the way, Donna became aware that the Canadian government websites were not very accessible to disabled job seekers; in 2006, after having spent several years trying to convince the Canadian government that their websites needed to be made accessible to Canadians with disabilities, she and a team of fellow advocates launched a charter challenge that culminated in a landmark victory at the Canadian Court of Appeal in 2012. As mandated by the court, the Canadian Government must make their websites accessible to all Canadians—especially those with disabilities. Indeed, many Canadian government websites today have undergone noticeab